Revolution

The American Declaration
of Independence received great response in
The Netherlands. The ideas of `The Age of Reason,' the writings of the
French philosophers
Voltaire,
Montesquieu and Rousseau, had found their
way into Holland but the debate had remained theoretical. The structure
of the Dutch republic was by then suffering severely from petrifaction.
The glories of the seventeenth century were a memory. A few ruling families
ran the country on a patriarchal basis, with a Prince of Orange as stadholder.
The news from America now brought hope to the enemies of this system.
The revolt seemed a warning to the ruling families, who gave the Dutch
people as small a share in their government as the English Parliament had
granted the colonists. In America the social theories of the French philosophers
were being put into practice. Support of the American cause became
a natural rallying point for the opponents of the Dutch oligarchy. All
classes were represented, including the more enlightened aristocrats.

The merchants of Amsterdam again found themselves, by the very
nature of their profession, on the side of freedom of trade and shipping.
As early as 1775 they were in contact with the American rebels. The Dutch
island of St. Eustatius in the Caribbean became the center of trade with the
colonies, a trade which England naturally regarded as contraband. It was
here that the very first salute was fired to the American flag. The trader
Andrew Doria, entering the harbor of St. Eustatius on November 16, 1776,
flew the newly designed flag (at that time without stars). The island's
governor, Johan de Graaff, acknowledged her and saluted her with eleven
shots from the fort.

British protests over this action were so vehement that he was called
back to Holland to account for himself. However, the States-General,
overriding the Stadholder's reluctance to offend England, immediately
reinstated him as Governor of St. Eustatius. In 1781, a British fleet destroyed
the installations on the island to put an erid to the trade with the rebels.

In the meantime France had recognized the new American republic
and had declared war on England. A strong party in Holland wanted the
Dutch government to follow the same policy. But Holland and England
had been official allies for a hundred years. The Stadholder was a friend
and relative of the English king.

The City of Amsterdam in the meantime, however, started its negotiations
with the Americans in secret. A plan was drafted for a treaty of trade and
friendship to become effective as soon as Holland would recognize the
independence of the United States. But by then relations between Holland
and England had deteriorated still further on the issue of the Dutch trade
with the rebels. When England got hold of a copy of the secret treaty,
it used it as a pretext to declare war on The Netherlands.

Holland and the American colonies were now united against Britain.
In 1782 Holland formally recognized the independence of the United States,
the second country to do so. The new American envoy to The Hague,
John Adams, was proud `to have torn from England's bosom ... a faithful
ally... by availing himself of the still small voice of reason... without
money, without intrigue...'The Credentials of John Adams

Popular sentiment had been with the colonies from the beginning.
John Paul Jones, the famous American naval officer, wrote from Holland
in December 1779: `The Dutch people are for us and for the
war.' Jones
himself had actually received shelter in Holland in spite of violent protests
from England, then still at peace with The Netherlands, and he was cheered
as a hero wherever he went.

The Amsterdam merchants did not have a purely idealistic interest
in the colonists' effort to break through British trade restrictions. They
hoped that Amsterdam would succeed London as the European center of
American trade. This hope was not to materialize and England continued to
monopolize the trade of the former colonies after their independence was
won.

In the field of finance, important relations were established. In 1782,
Adams obtained the first loan for Congress, five million guilders, from
three Amsterdam banking houses. In the latter years of the eighteenth
century The Netherlands was still the money market of Europe, and the
fact that Amsterdam granted the first loan to the rebels was of great help
to their prestige and cause.

These financial ties continued to be maintained after the independence
of the colonies was recognized by the treaty of 1783. By 1794, the total
amount lent by Holland had risen to thirty million guilders, or twelve
million dollars. This formed the entire foreign debt of the United States.

But in the real battles the weakened Dutch
republic could do little for its American ally, and the secret treaty which
had led it into war with England cost the Dutch Republic
it its territories in India. The major
engagement of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch war was a sea battle in the
summer of 1780. The Dutch
and British ships involved fought each other to a draw, but the Dutch fleet
was disabled for the duration of the conflict. The peace treaty with England
in 1784 forced the republic to cede the India possessions.

This sad outcome of the war Holland had fought with the new American
republic against England, naturally did not boost the stock of Dutch
progressives at home. For years the country tottered on the brink of a civil
war; then, when in 1787 the Dutch progressives who called their party `the
Patriots' tried to topple the aristocratic regime, neighboring Prussia
intervened. Prussian soldiers invaded the country, restored the oligarchy,
and forced the leading Patriots to flee. Most of them went to France and
were bound to return soon: the triumphant tide of the French Revolution
brought them back to Holland and to power. Others went to the United
States and thus became the first and only political refugees in that country
from the Netherlands. The most famous of them was the Francis Adrian
van der Kemp whom we mentioned earlier. He became a friend of George
Washington, and planned the Erie Canal. He founded Barneveld, later called
Trenton, in the Mohawk Valley. But he and his fellow immigrants were a
small group and they left but few traces in America.